


chicken soup for the carbonite frozen soul

by mrsgryffindor



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, poor baby han, self reflection, so much self loathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsgryffindor/pseuds/mrsgryffindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse into Han Solo's stream of consciousness as he's being lowered down into the carbonite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	chicken soup for the carbonite frozen soul

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of my love letter to Han. This is also the first fanfic I have publicly shared in 8 years, so please go easy on me.

“I know.”  


Of course she knows that he knows, and he curses himself. This is not how he imagined today was going to go. Fucking Lando.  


Something that imminent death grants a person is a brand new perspective, Han realizes quickly. He’s always dismissed tales of lives flashing before eyes, regrets making themselves known in one’s final moment, but for a second, Han _gets_ it. Nothing is flashing in front of his eyes, per say, but for a few moments he looks at his life in a macro sense that he’s never seen it before. Has he lived a life that he’s happy with?  


Halfway down he realizes, almost idly, that this is the first time in his life that someone has told him that they love him. He almost can’t believe it. Has he really been that unlovable all these years? Okay, well… yes, sort of. It was never really his fault. He was an orphan (and that certainly doesn’t earn one any declarations of love), and he floated around for a while after that doing a laundry list of stupid shit, and yeah, maybe he was a one-night-stand type of guy almost all of his sad (and now short, he supposes) life. Sure, he’s a smuggler, yes, and a scoundrel, and sometimes a little scruffy... But not an unlovable guy.  


Okay, yeah, Chewie loves him. Not in that way, but certainly as a brother. It’s something they never really discussed, though. You don’t just strike up that kind of conversation with your copilot, right? That would have made things weird, anyway. So maybe one person loved him before Leia, but he never _said_ it.  


He should have said something different than _‘I know.’_ The girl of his dreams, hell the love of his life, blurts out her true feelings for him, and he, in typical Han Solo fashion, had to respond with something terrifically stoic. He’s an idiot and he’s never deserved her, not once.  


Leia has been staring helplessly at him this whole time. She’s scared, she’s beautiful, and in that moment, Han realizes one last thing: she’s going to get on just fine without him. Why was he ever worried? A month or two and this’ll all blow over. She’ll realize how much of a mistake he was and she’ll go back to leading the Rebels to victory. Guaranteed. That actually makes him feel a little better. Leia will be okay, so he’s okay with this. Death by Carbonite doesn’t seen as unpleasant as before.  


In his truly and very last moments, he looks to her, as he always has. She is so, so, beautiful, he almost cannot believe it all--his life, everything that has happened (especially in the past five years)... And a princess and a guy like him. Who would’ve guessed it? Certainly not Han.  


Then, like he knew it would, it all goes black.


End file.
